After a damning loss to Scotland a weekend ago, Steve Borthwick’s England were 31-14 winners over Italy at Twickenham in what was the head coaches first victory as head coach.
It was a commanding performance from the off for England. To establish their physical dominance early on, the England scrum winning the ball back against the head to regain possession and it was much the same story from then on.
Winning the ball back from Italy’s scrum once more, England could not be held out for much longer. Kicking to the corner, in what was a hugely popular move among the home crowd, the maul slicing through the Italian defence to send Jack Willis over the whitewash.
It was an extremely good day at the office for Willis as a whole. Not selected for the Scotland loss after not having been seen that much by the England coaching staff as a result of his commitments with club side Stade Toulousain, the flanker was doing what he does best in an England jersey once more.
Turning the ball over at the breakdown, chopping down Italian defenders and landing some dominant hits, it was a day to remember for the 26-year-old who sustained a serious leg injury in this same fixture two years ago.
After Owen Farrell added the conversion, things would go from bad to worse for Italy. Their captain, Michele Lamaro, began to limp with a thigh injury and was eventually replaced by Manuel Zuliani.
Continuing their good momentum, some heavy handed defending from Italy five meters out resulted in Lorenzo Cannone seeing yellow, the resulting drive seeing Ollie Chessum cross the whitewash as Ellis Genge popped the ball to his former Leicester Tigers teammate in close quarters.
Borthwick’s side would cross the whitewash on two further occasions before half-time. Jack van Poortvliet saw his effort chalked off for a trip by Ollie Lawrence in the leadup as Max Malins confounded his opposition to send the scrum-half over.
What did count was Jamie George’s try as half-time beckoned. It was a simple enough score as Cannone’s sinbinning was nearly over, the power which England had seeing the hooker go over with a relative ease to extend their lead to 19-nil as Italy failed to sparkle.
In the second half, things went a bit better for Italy. Striking first, Marco Riccioni sniped his way across the try line, the tighthead benefitting from a Ange Capuozzo break in the moments prior which disorganised the England defence before Kieran Crowley’s side worked the ball back across.
Riccioni was replaced shortly after by Simone Ferrari, the 28-year-old having a major part to play in England’s fourth try. Bringing a maul down, the Benetton man was duly sent to the sin-bin after James Doleman saw no alternative but to walk beneath the posts and hand England a penalty try.
Across the second period, Italy shoed their fight and desire. Whether it was Seb Negri’s man-handling of Owen Farrell or just their sheer determination to get over the gainline, it was by no means a poor performance from the side that ran France so close a week ago in Rome.
Alessandro Fusco’s score supports this, the sub scrum-half benefitting from the England defence not making their challenges count for anything.
With the benches being unloaded, any true sense of consistency in the clash was battered out of both teams. Henry Arundell’s try killed off the contest without doubt, the returning back from London Irish coming on for his clubmate Ollie Hassell-Collins with plenty of time on the clock and took up a spot on the left wing.
Described as a special talent by many, the youngster proved just why with his finish in the corner.
Alex Mitchell was the architect, the Northampton Saints scrum-half looking for soft shoulders before offloading to his teammate who dived over and made England’s lead unassailable from then on.
It means that heading into the first fallow week, England are off the mark under their new head coach. While not pretty, the side showed clear improvement from the 23-29 loss to Scotland and will be buoyed by their efforts.
Up next will be Wales, who after losses to Ireland and Scotland are at the complete opposite end of the spectrum, with the reinstalled Warren Gatland having plenty on his plate these next two weeks.
